Explore our TEM blogs for expert perspective, real examples, and clear guidance to manage telecom and technology expenses confidently, with fresh insights added routinely.
At first TEM programs only focused on telecommunications lines and the bills from carriers. As the telecommunications world has expanded so has the discipline. A number of other practices now fall under the umbrella of TEM.
With the expanding complexity of telecom, there is an ever growing push to integrate cost allocation into expense management. Managers want to know who pays for telecom services, and how much they pay, so they can make intelligent decisions using that data. IT and finance both want deeper visibility into what is driving costs, and hopefully, insight as to how the environment can be restructured to minimize the impact to the bottom line.
Huge not only in dollar value, but in sheer volume. Some firms have complex telecom environments including many locations, multiple vendors, and various services ranging from mobile to WAN. This can mean a lot of paper coming in, a responsibility that may make you want to hide in your office and pretend like you’re on vacation. For a year.
A popular service TEM firms offer is telecom invoice processing, but many clients don’t quite understand WHAT it is or HOW it works. What they do understand is that phone bills are a pain in the neck.
Invoice detail is most often associated with cost allocation and a telecom auditing. User, usage and cost information is made more visible, so errors and overcharges can more easily be seen and corrected. Data can be entered and allocated to a degree of detail dictated by the individual client, as some may want more granular information available for reporting. Electronic invoice copies are also stored in their original layout, as a PDF or other desired format, for archiving and research needs. This creates a rich history of data for use over time, giving visibility to important trends and the distribution of costs throughout the firm.
As much as companies rely on communications to connect with customers, partners and colleagues throughout the world, each channel can add significant costs to the overall telecom budget. This drives a need for telecom expense management to ensure all channels are necessary and optimized for the lowest cost.
As mentioned in our previous post on wireless, inventory management is critical to keeping a lid on your telecom costs. The trick is knowing WHAT to manage. And until the landline telephone goes away, they are still a headache. Here are some best practices we’ve found from twenty years of fixed wireline expense management….
Our telecom auditing teams manage mobileenvironments of various sizes, and we hit up our operations experts for some best practices. First we’ll go over ideas for wireless and mobile inventory management (cell phones, smartphones, tablets), then we’ll get into wireline (landline telephones).
Telecom expense management (TEM), as an industry, was born as a business process outsourcing (BPO) solution. However, with the recent creation of low cost, easy to deploy TEM software tools, many firms have chosen to bring their TEM program in house. But the expansion of devices, complexity and risk in modern telecom environments have led many managers to rethink that decision and move back to an outsourced model.
23-year veteran of telecom expense management (TEM) Valicom announces the launch of their educational series. Released on their blog and as downloads on their website, the article series hopes to shed light on the various elements within a strong TEM program.
The old adage “You can’t manage what you can’t measure” starts with inventory. Tracking phones, devices, circuits and assets is the starting point for gaining control over expenses. There is no way to know what the telecom costs should be if the data isn’t there on what the costs cover. And as the telecom environment expands with mobile devices and smartphones, or companies grow through mergers and acquisitions, keeping track gets even more complicated.
Wireless Expense Management (WEM) is a subsection of Telecom Expense Management (TEM) with a focus on wireless services and mobile devices. The goals for WEM programs are similar to TEM programs. They seek to proactively reduce expenses, establish new operational efficiencies, increase visibility and provide better control for mobile voice and data services.
The Android Police did a good job recently laying bare the latest scandal of fraudulent apps and malware infecting the Droid universe.Though it was caught fairly quickly, the recent fake Virus Shield app rocketed to #1 on the App Store with over 10,000 downloads in a week – at $3.99 each – before it was determined that it offered no security features whatsoever.
A new story today in the New York times vividly illustrates the security risks we’ve been talking about in previous posts, as more and more devices and machines become internet connected. A scary detail broke that the hackers in the recent Target payment card breach gained access to the retailer’s records through its heating and cooling system. In other cases, hackers have used printers, thermostats and videoconferencing equipment.
Every IT and Telecom manager is facing their own set of needs regarding cost control, security measures, time saving tactics and asset management. Now it is up to TEM vendors to give them what they need.
We talk a lot about the Carrier Wars and how it is impacting the mobile market, as shrinking growth options drive vendors to invite creative ways to steal clients from one another. But the New York Times added an interesting angle in a recent article giving the federal government some credit for this cost-lowering, two-year-contract-busting, annoying-fee-eliminating fight. And they may have a point…
Telecom inventory management for enterprise has gone from a headache to a nightmare. With the rapid expansion of devices and technologies, IT and telecom managers need a proactive approach to overseeing fixed and wireless environments to control cost and reduce risk. Telecom expense management veteran Valicom will share best practices for handling telecom inventory in a new webinar Telecom & Wireless Inventory Management: What the Pros Know on Wednesday, May 14, 2014 at 10 a.m. CST.
Smart machines and M2M (machine to machine) traffic have been around for a while, but they are rapidly becoming ubiquitous. More and more devices are designed to collect, process and transmit data. Whether it is medical equipment or RFID tags on shipping containers, they need to be inventoried, secured, managed and expensed.
If you haven’t heard, Phone + Tablet = Phablet. This newest entry into the mobile device market is a mashup of ideas, designed to offer more screen space, while still providing the talk capabilities of a phone. Already big in global markets, it is hitting the US consumer hard.
Techradar wrote a great article on wearable tech and network security recently, leading off with the ridiculous new product from Sony -a “smartwig”. Supposedly such an item could be worn even if you have hair – as an extra – and be used to do things like change slides for a presentation with a waggle of the eyebrows, orient and guide the wearer via GPS, or transmit biometric data (heartbeat, blood pressure) from the wearer to medical staff.
The technology world is seeing a massive explosion of wearable new toys, all wirelessly connected. The floor at the recent Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas was swimming with them – all racing to market to capture early tech adopters. Smartwatches and Google Glasses are just the tip of the iceberg. There is a veritable avalanche of gadgetry heading your way.
